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Poor TS. :'-(

its not necessarily about the architect.

I'm not saying that it always is. I'm merely pointing out failures of architectural design (whether or not that's entirely down to the architects is another discussion). It's not good using places like Highpoint to counter my argument, because Highpoint is about as relevant to a discussion on the failure of many high density social housing projects as involving a pop tune in a discussion of Baroque Classical Music. Highpoint is a small scale relatively low density project intended for a particular type of resident, and has succeeded in it's execution. As for the Barbican; AFAIK that wasn't intended to provide 'social housing', and in fact is now relatively sparsely populated given it's scale (less than 2 occupants per household av.), and caters mainly for affluent City workers, not families. And has already been pointed out, the Barbican is a crumbling behemoth that requires massive expenditure to keep it maintained, and is overdue for demolishun really.

Granted, put the wrong 'type' of people into any sort of housing development, and problems can and will emerge. But such problems are less prevalent in lower density developments.

I might have summat in me spare bits box. Let me have a rummage when I get home.

There appears to be a Mr Smith/Smyth, who seems identical to a poster on another forum I used to frequent. Very arsey photographist type. Is he gawn, or still about?

No it's not it's Vinegar Tits from Prisoner: Cell Block H.

Tasmania's favourite cookery programme.

Greetings. I used to be a prolific poster on a Popular Mountain Biking Forum until I got bayned for life (for upsetting those with a cuntish disposition). I enjoyed posting about art, architecture and stuff, so LFGSS seems to be perfect for me!

I also ride a bike sometimes.

X

The only thing anyone is really interested in over the next four weeks is

1. Where will Suarez go?
   
2. Where will Bale go?
   
3. Where will Rooney go?
   
4. Will Arsenal ever spend any money?
   
   

1: To the club which offers him the most money
2: To the club which offers him the most money
3: To the club which offers him the most money
4: If they don't, they'll never win owt again. It's bin 8 years now. That's quite a shocking statistic actually.

Yes:

Architects need to fully understand the needs of the end users before embarking on new projects.

I think this article sums it up rather nicely:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/sep/23/stirling-prize-architects-own-homes

The brutalist Balfron, designed by Erno Goldfinger, was built in 1965-67, and for a few scant weeks in 1968 Goldfinger moved into the building himself, the better to convince the world how utterly fantastic his design was (his real home was in Hampstead).

Two things stick in my mind about my visit. The first was the lift, which stops only at every third floor, and was sinisterly long and narrow because, or so our guide told us, it was designed to accommodate a coffin. The second was a debate I had with an architectural historian inside a flat close to the top of the building. Naturally, he was all for Balfron. You should have seen the beatific expression that suffused his face as he urged me to admire its generous proportions, its clever layout, its wonderful view. I was less certain. Would you like to live here? I asked. He insisted that he would. Then he admitted that he actually lived in a Georgian house in Royal Greenwich.

One place in that collection is the legendary Heygate Estate in Elephant + Castle.

Nice. Look how much space there is for all the residents to share:

The Heygate Estate is a large housing estate located in Walworth, Southwark, south London. The estate is currently being demolished as part of the regeneration of the Elephant and Castle area.[1] It was home to more than 3,000 people.[2]
The Heygate is well known for being one of the starkest examples of post-war urban decay in the United Kingdom. Its notoriety has led to it being used frequently as a filming location for music videos and movies.

The Corbusian concept behind the construction of the estate was of a modern living environment. The neo-brutalist architectural aesthetic was one of tall, concrete blocks dwarfing smaller blocks, surrounding central communal gardens.

The estate was once a popular place to live, the flats being thought light and spacious,[5] but the estate later developed a reputation for crime, poverty and dilapidation.[6] Residents complained about constant noise, crime and threats of violence. The sheer scale of many of the blocks also meant there was little sense of community.[7] By the 2000s, the estate had fallen into severe disrepair.

Whether it's a fair comparison with London, I guess so.

Really? You think so?? You think Singapore can be compared directly to London? Singapore is riding the crest of an economic wave. Let's see what happens when that wave crashes. I wonder what mental state many Singaporeans are in, considering how densely packed in they seem to be. A quick google suggest mental health treatment in Singapore falls well short of other services provided...

Using Singapore as a distraction from the argument against high-density, low quality social housing, is to invoke a straw man. The discussion here concerns housing here in London, specifically, and I see no examples of where such architectural design and planning has worked well. Indeed, another quick google of London housing estates throws up myriad images of narsty council estates. Which kind of proves my original point re RGH.

I've bin to many of the places depicted in this collection, and all of them have bin narsty in one way or another:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/londonsocialhousing/pool/36177319@N04/

As an example of how high rise could be done

Zat Singapore? Do you think that's a fair comparison with London?

Looks like my idea of Hell, personally. I wouldn't live there. I grew up on the 19th floor of a tower block. As a small child, I din't get to play out as much as I wanted, because there was no way my mum could keep an eye on me (she'd be busy with household stuff, my dad would be at work). The lifts often broke down. They constantly stunk of piss. As did the stairs, which were favoured by heroin addicts and other even less savoury characters. We seldom saw any of our neighbours. The building wasn't suitable for those with young children, the elderly and disabled. By the 80s, tower blocks were deemed to be a bad idea.

What do we now see shooting up around London, in private developments?

Do you genuinely believe the architects really give a fuck about potential residents? But then, the architects don't have to live there....

Prole has a point, it's politics that have failed the people

The architecture is part of the politics, not separate from it.

Re Berlin: I've just bin reading about Gropiusstadt. Once hailed as the answer to Germany's post-war housing problems, it's not exactly the utopia the architects/planners envisaged. And in former East Berlin, much of the huge swathes of massive Soviet housing blocks have bin replaced by lower level lower density housing.

I grew up in Old Ford, Bow E3. I lived in Sandall House on the Ranwell estate. Ranwell East was vast interconnected estate rife with crime; the many interconnecting walkways allowed criminal activity to flourish unseen. Large bits of it were demolished in the early 90s to be replaced with low level housing, many with gardens. The estate is much better than it used to be.

Visit many of London's large estates, with Corbusierian/Brutalist architecture, and you will find problems. Social issues are exacerbated by such architecture. Time to rethink things.

And alternatively projects in Berlin and Marseille that are successful.

Which ones?

That the problem is a political one, rather than an architectural.

The typical architects' cop-out. Oft spouted when one of their 'wonderful visionary designs' has bin proven to be a failure.

From living on nasty estates, I can tell you that such architecture is oppressive, restrictive and depressing. Such buildings seldom, as is claimed in the plans, bring people together in one lovely warm 'community', but instead isolates and divides. One major problem is the lack of personal space such as a garden; people are expected to share communal spaces at all times. These spaces, instead of belonging to 'everyone', end up belonging to no-one. A communal space is fine if you also have your own private space too. Forcing people to share the same space means that the problems of individuals become the problems of the entire 'community'.

Also, as I have learned through my own experience (rather than some pretentious flowery academic waffle), many designs actually restrict and prevent social interaction; tower blocks are terrible for this. You rarely get to see your neighbours. And when you do, they're either coming in or going out; you don't get to chat in the street over the garden fence or owt. Plus the designs often create dark corners for nefarious types to hide away in; this creates a very intimidating environment which makes people rush in to shut their front doors against the scary world outside.

Recent redevelopments have seen the demolishun of large blocks, replaced by lower level housing often with some sort of garden/private space. As this is seen as the better model for social housing. What does that tell you about previous ideas?

You don't hear anyone discussing the Alton Estate as a perfect social Utopia though do you? Plenty of negative references to the place on tinternet.

Then there's Corbusier designed/inspired type stuff in places like the poor suburbs of Paris (see 'La Haine). I don't think anyone can claim those are a resounding success.

A lot of these buildings were built as a result of the slums after WW2. The idea behind them is genraly very good. Giving people nice views, easy access to aminaties, lots of green space. Unfortunatly, they became slums themselves. Some of them have worked and others have been made to work ( Broadwater_Farm I know Wiki is sometimes (often) wrong but this is pretty impreasive).

There was a massive need in large cities, to provide large-scale social housing. There were some well-meant ideas and projects. Unfortunately, many of these projects have failed to deliver on all promises. Fair enough, experimental solutions were tried. But too often, the planners and architects had little or no idea of how to effectively address the real needs of people, and failed to consult the potential residents/do adequate research into potential issues. And al too often, the residents of such projects aren't deemed sufficiently worthy of genuinely effective investment. Hence the widespread failure of such projects, not just in the UK but throughout the entire globe.

You can't just cram people into concrete boxes, forget about them and expect everything to be wonderful.

also the current residents not wanting to live there is not a reason to knock it down.

Hardly any residents in the carbuncle's history have genuinely wanted to live there.

It's a failure. English Heritage agree. Knock the fucker down.

Its clearly a sh*thole, why are people defending it?

Because it's 'cool' to spout bolocks about shit architecture. Because they misguidedly and mistakenly think that intellectualising such things elevates them to some sort of ethereal status above the common herd. Pretentious pricks. If you value it so much, go and live in it, in the same circumstances as the current residents. I guarantee that within a week, you will be wanting to leave.

Anyway; it's being demolished. So you lose. Suck it up.

Le Corbusier - what a cunt.

anyone done the SSD thing with a mac pro (desktop)

Planning to install a SSD for the boot/system drive, have all the applications and system on that, and 2 or 3 HDs for storage. At least 1 drive will be a backup for files.

Bespoke. Always bespoke.

Your aggression makes you seem a bit of a reactionary twat. It's very tempting to get embroiled in this discussion but I just can't be arsed.

..whereas you just sound like a needy apathetic twat. ;-)

What line of work are you in, Elfinsafety?

I design bespoke pasta.

It does have value, as an example of Brutalist architecture. I doubt there's much quite as nasty anywhere else in the UK. Hence why certain people attach a fanciful, romantic significance to it. But that's not enough for it to deserve preservation. I don't see why those with rose-tinted designer specs should have a say in it's fate; that should be decided by those who have to suffer the 'orrible thing.

I see you have a bit of a irrational fear of architects...

Wrong.

I agree it was mismanaged, ie the bit about it turning into a sink estate. The council housed too many of the wrong sort of people - large families.

The housing need at the time was for large families. RGH wasn't suitable for large families.

But I'm still wondering about the failure of design. The flats were very spacious and well designed. The same dimensions as the barbican if not bigger?

I've bin in a couple, and they're not too bad compared to current shoeboxes, but they're not that 'spacious' at all, relative to the average house size at the time they were built.

The brief was to build social housing for families. RGH was a failure to fulfil that brief adequately,. Defend it all you like; the fact is that it has failed as a project.

Ultimately the fault lies with the council as they didn't maintain/modernise it properly.

No good blamingTHC al the time; they were stuck with it, with meagre resources to fix problems. RGH was the wrong type of housing for the need, end of.

It's a failure.

I would like to know where you got your info from?

I live near there. I know people who live there. I know people who work for and with THC. I know people who work with residents who suffer from all sorts of often quite severe problems, many caused by living on that estate.

it was not a problem with the design but with Tower Hamlets council turning it into a sink estate.

It's a failure in design, execution and in management.

Give me an example of where such housing has succeeded, in such circumstances.

Sorry if I come across a bit tetchy over this, but I believe in putting the needs of people before the whims of architects etc. People who never lived there, who've probably never experienced the problems that those who do have.

And we'll be saying the same thing about the 'regeneration' project in twenty years time.

Sadly, you're probably right.

Don't just believe stuff you've read on Wiki, without any other source of info. The only reason '80% of residents' voted for refurbishment, was cos Tower Hamlets cuntcil would not have housed them close by, but elsewhere, with the residents having no choice in where they would be rehoused. This would have led to the breakup of what little there is in terms of community, and huge upheaval for everyone who lived there (in many cases, residents would be offered 'temporary' accommodation until they could be permanently rehoused; having experienced what THC consider 'suitable temporary accommodation', I would not wish that on anyone). So, refurbishment was the lesser of the evils on offer. Fact is that most residents would rather see it demolished and replaced with decent homes to live in.

The design was experimental, and has failed. It was compromised from the very beginning (drastically altered plans, inferior substandard materials etc), which has contributed to it's failure. Yet instead of demolishing the bastard and providing better housing, THC has neglected the area and the people within.

Apparently, the estate is finally to be demolished anyway, and 'regenerated'. About fucking time.

Yeah that's it. 'Orrible narsty place. They've spent a lot of money on a nice little garden area between the two main blocks, but it's gilding a turd.

There was a telly programme a couple of years ago, where residents met the group trying to get the dump listed. FFS. Was summed up when one resident offered to swap homes with one of the fanbois, some artist or summat; he squirmed in embarrassment.

I have no problem in preserving buildings of particular architectural/historical/cultural merit, but RHG has not had a positive effect on those the project was meant to serve. It has failed in it's purpose. This is the thing; those artists, architects etc wanting to preserve it, go and live there for a year, in the same circumstances as the current residents. You'll soon change your mind about the place.